Late
medieval guilds served a range of functions both secular and religious.
Guilds of merchants or craftsmen in the towns served in the regulation
of commerce and trade, but also carried out religious functions, such
as the presentation of the Mystery Plays in the towns. Town corporations
which progressively took over aspects of local government usually had
some kind of historical origin in the local merchants' guilds, but also
in religious guilds. These last were sometimes organised at a parish level,
but also sometimes appeared to act as a sort of medieval Rotary Club,
where men of good character assembled under the banner of some saint or
other to ensure the welfare of their members. The seals
of guilds may therefore contain a combination of religious imagery and
that derived from the guild's secular function, often with heraldic flourishes.

Seal
of the fullers of Warwick.

This
example, from a craft guild involved in woollen cloth finishing, employs purely
religious imagery in the form a depiction of the adoration of the Magi. There
is a heraldic device at the bottom of the seal.

Seal
of the Vintner's Company of London, of 1437.

This
example of a merchant guild seal shows the popular religious image of
St Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar. The background is filled with
grapvines and fruit while a wine barrel lies at his horse's feet. Perhaps
the vintners thought that charity should involve the sharing of wine as
well as clothing.

14th
century staple seals of London, Southampton and Boston. Yes, this is a rather
scungy picture, sorry.

The
wool staples regulated the export and quality control of this most significant
product of late medieval England. These staple seals show an assortment of
imagery. That of Lincoln represents the Virgin and Child standing on a woolsack.
That of Southampton supposedly shows a leopard's face in a rosette with roses
and fleurs de lis. We may have to take that on faith. That of Boston shows
its patron saint, St Botolph, standing behind a woolpack. The juxtapostion
seems a little strange, but probably no more peculiar than having St Isidore
of Seville as patron saint of the internet.

The seal of the water merchants of Partis.

The merchants who plied the water in Paris depicted the major tool of their trade, a boat. And yes, it is intriguing how often boat imagery finds its way on to seals. I guess even a very simplified image of a boat is instantly recognisable.

The
depiction of craftsmen or their tools of trade in a religious context mirrors
that found in the stained glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, where the guilds
that subsidised each window are depicted as part of the imagery. It simply
emphasises that religious life was a major part of public or corporate life
in the middle ages.

Bakers,
bankers, drapers and winesellers are just some of the many craft groups that
had themselves immortalised in the magnificent 13th century stained glass
windows of Chartres.

In the later middle ages, trade guilds were granted coats of arms, and so they joined the aristocracy, religious institutions and other corporate entities in using these on their seals.

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This
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Dianne
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